“Right.” He sounded relieved that she understood. “All we need to know is that there really were threats previous to the explosion, that there was a reason to think that the risk was greater than we had been informed, and that because of that, this developer went into the contract with the intent to defraud us.” Sleighbow’s sincerity came through even over the bad speaker on the phone. “If you uncover anything else, you know what you have to do. I would turn anything suspicious over to the police, and I think you will too, but I’m not going to dictate to your conscience. And Romulus will not be double-checking on you. In the words of Rhett Butler, ‘Frankly, Scarlett—’”

“Uh huh.” She couldn’t fault him or the company, really. Criminality was not their business, and he was evidently quite conscious of the fact that he was hiring her to find information that might prove to be harmful to her people. This was the best compromise he could offer.

Yeah, I know what I have to do—turn the evidence or even the suspicions over to the police. This is murder; my duty lies with those who were killed, even as an Osage shaman—or at least the kind of shaman Grandfather has taught me to be. But that doesn’t make doing that duty any easier.

Still, how many times had Grandfather made it clear that the time for purely tribal loyalties was gone? That her “tribe” was humanity? Besides, there were plenty of P.I.s in Tulsa who would be very happy to find him the proof of conspiracy he wanted—even if it wasn’t there. They’d at least be getting a fair shake with her in charge.

And there were those pesky bills to pay—

“Well, Mr. Sleighbow, I guess you’ve just hired yourself a P.I.,” she said slowly. “I’d rather it was me than someone with a prejudicial axe to grind.”

“So would we, Miss Talldeer.” Yes, that was relief in his voice too. “This way no one can be accused of not giving the Native Americans under suspicion the benefit of the doubt. Send your invoices to me, directly—”

He dictated an address, which she noted down; while this seemed to be a perfectly legitimate job, she would be taking no chances. She’d be checking both the job and Sleighbow, tonight and tomorrow before she actually did anything at all on the case. There had been cases of people pretending to an authority they did not have; there had been hoaxes perpetrated on P.I.s too.